This invention relates to a connector for accommodating therein an edge portion of a plate object and for providing electrical connections to terminals formed on the edge portion of the plate object. The plate object is for example a small circuit board, such as a memory module or the like.
An existing connector for a small circuit board with terminals comprises a housing that has upper and lower planes and an opening between the upper and lower planes. Contacts corresponding to the terminals are regularly arranged within the housing so as to be viewed through the opeing of the housing. In the existing connector, when the edge portion of the small circuit board is inserted into the housing through the opening in a direction slanted against the upper and lower planes of the housing and the small circuit board is then tilted to be substantially parallel with the upper and lower planes of the housing, the contacts and the terminals are connected with each other.
To make the connection reliable, the contacts of the existing connector has elastic characteristic and, by the use of the elastic characteristic, provides contact pressure to the inserted edge portion of the small circuit board when the small circuit board is tilted.
However, as the number of the contacts increases, contact pitches become narrow and the contacts themselves becomes fine and small, because of the limitation of the connector size. The small and fine contacts have smaller elastic characteristic so as not to provide terminals of a small circuit board with contact pressure enough to make reliable connection. In addition, the small and fine contacts are weaker in strength so as to be easily broken if the unexpected force is added to the contacts.
As apparent from the above, a need exists for a connector that, even if contacts of the connector are fine and small, has sufficient structural strength on the contacts and can provide reliable connection.